


You Can Blow What's Left of My Right Mind

by chickenlivesinpumpkin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Has Nightmares, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Kissing, M/M, Sam Wilson is a Gift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 07:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenlivesinpumpkin/pseuds/chickenlivesinpumpkin
Summary: Bucky's not sharing a mirror with the Asset anymore.





	You Can Blow What's Left of My Right Mind

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the new poster for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and had thoughts about how that haircut might've come about. 
> 
> This fic includes brief, semi-graphic references to assassination and the death of a child. Read at your own risk.
> 
> Title's from Future Starts Slow, by The Kills

The sun bakes into the black back of the Asset’s tac vest as it lies on the white roof. The metal of the arm is very hot to the touch. The SVDK is already propped up and ready. It’s watching the northern end of the road through binoculars for when the green Volvo license 470D 322D appears. It finds the mask and goggles particularly useful to this mission; the light is very bright here, disorienting. It waits for more than an hour. It does not get distracted.

When the green Volvo license 470D 322D appears at the end of the road, it puts the binoculars aside and gets into position, eye to the scope, the stock extended and tight against its shoulder, breathing regular, and waits.

The green Volvo license 470D 322D enters the killing field nearly a minute later, and parks within the acceptable standard variance. It doesn’t take much adjusting to ensure that when the door opens, the shot is lined up accurately. Through the scope, it can see the green military uniforms of the targets emerging, circling the car, and opening the rear passenger door. As soon as the target is in view, the Asset squeezes the trigger. The weapon kicks, the bullets punching through flesh, two, three, four, and then the target is falling back into the vehicle, eyes still open, kill confirmed. In front of the target, falling out of the open door onto the dirt road, is a little girl, two red holes leaking blood—one from the back of skull, the other in her torso, where the bullets had passed through her to reach the target as the two of them sat there hugging good-bye.

The target is dead. The kill is confirmed. The mission is complete. Extraction process begins: 1) move to rendezvous point 2) return to handler 3) submit for debriefing and medical.

It begins to disassemble the SVDK. It is far enough away in its perch that the wild panic of the target’s security team—nearly 2,647 yards—is no immediate threat. It packs everything away in its case and then slides it into the duffle. It pulls a light jacket on over the tac vest to cover the arm, puts black leather gloves on to cover the hand, removes the mask and field glasses and puts them in the bag too. It takes a ballcap out and puts it on. It looks appropriately like a tourist now, if one overdressed for the weather. It can be seen on the streets.

It climbs over the low wall on the perimeter of the roof and drops onto the exterior stairway. It can hear car horns now, from far down the street. Yells. They don’t concern it. They shouldn’t concern it. It should not be feeling concern. It begins to walk. It has completed its mission. The target is dead. The kill is confirmed. Everything is within mission parameters. It doesn’t understand this feeling that is growing inside it, this sense of wrongness. This sense that something terrible is happening.

It searches the rushing civilian traffic, bodies moving away from the site of the shooting, looking for foreign operators or other threats. Nothing. There is no visible origination for this feeling of wrongness. It casts its mind back, wondering if it has missed something, but everything is within mission parameters. The target is dead. The kill is confirmed. But the sense of wrongness is growing. Growing and growing, swamping it, taking it under with the knowledge that something is wrong, something is very wrong, something is wrong with it, inside the it, there is a wrongness inside the it, and kill or no kill, mission or no mission, it is wrong—

The Asset sits bolt upright, gasping, images watery and wavering in its head like photographs in a whirlpool. The green Volvo license 470D 322D is in the first image, there and gone, whisked away, and then it is the diplomatic target’s face and then the hot African sun and the little girl dropping boneless to the asphalt, a puppet with cut strings.

It hadn’t cared that it was killing a man on the grounds of a primary school, it hadn’t cared at all, and the horror of that, the horror of not caring is the wrongness that it had felt, and it’s gonna, it’s gonna be—He. It is actually a he, and he does care, he cares enough that he’s gonna be sick.

He stumbles out of bed, blankets tangled around his legs, and it takes a few precious seconds to orient himself in the dark. He almost crushes the lamp when he goes for the switch, the ceramic base cracking under his left fist, but then he finds the switch, and it flares dim yellow, revealing a motel room, with ugly drapes and an ugly duvet and an ugly carpet, but at least it gives him an era to work with, and the world abruptly slots back into place—he’s in Denver, in 2019, and it’s after the mission, after Wakanda, after the snap, after the return, after Hill asked him to tag along with Wilson during ‘this difficult transition time’, and at least twenty-five years after the assassination of Paul Abioye and the collateral damage that was his seven-year-old daughter in Johannesburg, after, after…

He manages to make it to the toilet before he loses it. He hasn’t eaten in hours so there’s not much but bile in his stomach. It burns coming up. It takes a while before he can be sure it’s done, and only then does he flick on the bathroom light. There’s a click as the fluorescents come on, sterile and cold and blue-white. Different from the African light—that had been yellow-white; still painfully bright. Everything in the bathroom is clean and crisp and colorless. He goes to the sink and splashes the taste of vomit from his tongue. He stares at the silver drain and presses his hand across his mouth in the mirror, grinding his lips against his teeth until hurts. He doesn’t mean to look up into the mirror. He never looks into the mirror if he can avoid it, but now he does.

He takes a startled step back. He’d expected to see the Asset—black mask, field glasses, tac vest and fatigue pants, the silver arm shining, the red star glowering. Instead it’s a guy in his thirties, plain, ordinary, bloodshot and dirty-haired and...and old. The only thing that’s the same between the two—the memory and the reality, the before and the now, the Asset and the—him, the one pretending to be Bucky—is the hair. He still finds himself peering out between the lank curtains of hair.

Hydra hadn’t cared about the hair. They’d pushed him into a bathroom now and again with a bar of soap, complaining about the smell of his body or telling him to look sharp, soldier, you’ll need to be in public without attracting attention for this mission. But they’d never bothered to concern themselves with his hygiene or looks at any other time. They hadn’t cared if he had knots in it. He can’t remember the last time it’d been cut.

He can’t look anymore. He wishes, guiltily, that he had his mask and glasses back. It’d been quieter when he didn’t have to have a face. He spits into the sink. He feels greasy and sweaty. Coated with filth. He brushes his teeth to get the last of the vomit out, then takes a shower, hot as he can get it, letting the heat bake into him until suddenly he remembers the heat of the South African sun beating down through his tac vest as he’d lain on the roof lining up the shot.

He turns the water off with an abrupt flick of his wrist. He towels off, careful to get every last drop from the crease where the arm meets his flesh. If water gets in between the casing, it can get irritated and cause chafing. The old arm had been terrible about that—his stump had constantly felt inflamed and sore under the prosthetic.

The new arm is better, though. Princess Shuri had worked for a long time on it. She’d wanted so badly to make sure that it didn’t cause him pain that she’d spent ages working on the receptors and feedback systems, only to realize that there was nothing she could do to address the pain that having any arm at all inevitably caused.

The arm could not be removed the way most normal prosthetics could. It needed to stay on during intense physical confrontation and be able to withstand a great amount of force and weight. To avoid any accidental detachments in the field—or purposeful, enemy detachments during engagement—Hydra had permanently grafted the arm to numerous anchor points buried deep in his torso, using dozens of titanium bolts punched through various bones. It would be impossible to remove them now without sawing him open like a side of beef and meticulously cracking each bone open by hand to pry the hardware out. Never mind the risk posed by removing the implants in his spine that allowed his nervous system to communicate with the arm and deliver sensory information.

After days and days of scans and tests, Princess Shuri had laid out the reality of the situation: despite its considerable flaws, the current system of implants was better than the physical and mental trauma that would be inflicted by replacing it. So he got a shiny new arm that attached the same way that the old one had.

She’d been very upset about it. He’d felt bad for her.

Still, Princess Shuri’s work is an improvement on the old arm. It’s not as heavy, so the ever-present, grinding ache in his bones where the hardware is seated isn’t quite as bad now that there’s less weight pulling on them. And the muscles in his shoulders and back and abs aren’t as tight all the time from compensating so much. He still sometimes gets the terrible bruises across his torso if he has to hold a great weight with that arm and the muscles and bones underneath start to split, but that’s a pretty rare occurrence, and it always heals back up anyway, so it doesn’t much matter.

When he’s done drying off, he wraps the towel around his waist and darts another glance into the mirror. He doesn’t look like the Asset exactly, not with the new arm and no mask or glasses, but he also doesn’t look different enough that he can forget what’s lurking inside him. It’s the hair. It’s the same hair. He fists his hands to avoid reaching up and tearing it from his scalp.

After a moment of consideration, he takes the straight razor out of the leather holder in the grooming kit Steve had gotten him and unfolds the blade. He uses the strop to sharpen it, a habit familiar enough that he can do it without thinking about it. He’d been surprised by how inexpensive disposable razors were these days; back in Brooklyn before the war, they’d been a luxury that guys like Bucky and Steve couldn’t afford. He’d appreciated this gift more than he could say. He likes the way it fits in his hand, and it makes him feel a little less far away from that older version of Bucky.

When the razor’s ready, he reaches up, grabs a chunk of hair, and saws through it, dropping a fistful a good four inches long into the sink. He does several more big handfuls before he realizes there’s a problem—he’ll never be able to get the back of his head this way. Shaving your face is one thing, but a straight razor to a place you can’t see is asking for blood. He wouldn’t much mind, but Wilson will never shut up about it if Bucky misses a spot and ends up looking stupid. He eyes his half-shorn scalp in the mirror. The ship might’ve sailed there already. He sighs. Maybe best to throw himself on his sword.

It’s the middle of the night, but he isn’t going back to sleep anytime soon, and if Wilson’s going to give him shit, Bucky should at least have the satisfaction of depriving him of sleep first. He grabs the can of shaving cream and goes to the adjoining door. He knocks. Twice. Wilson answers, bleary-eyed and growling, and then blinks.

It must look worse than Bucky had expected.

Wilson doesn’t say anything, just studies Bucky with careful, kind eyes. Not the laughter Bucky was expecting. He doesn’t know what to say if Wilson’s not going to laugh at him, so he ends up standing there like a moron.

“Rough night?” Wilson asks finally.

How’d he know? Bucky stares at the wall. After an awkward pause, he jerks one shoulder in a shrug.

“What do you need?”

It should’ve sounded impatient, resentful, even more so because of the time of night. It doesn’t. Wilson sounds like he really wants to know.

“I can’t see the back.” Bucky mutters.

“You want help shaving it?”

Bucky shrugs again. He holds out the straight razor. Wilson takes it, stares at the blade thoughtfully for a long minute.

“Well?” Bucky demands. “Are you gonna do it or not?”

“If you’ll tell me why.”

“It’s none of your fucking business why,” Bucky says, and the temper that always seems to be crawling along his nerves these days threatens to flare up again. He bites it back.

“I suppose that’d be true under other circumstances,” Wilson says mildly. “But you’re here at my door at three in the morning. You came to me. And…not to be that guy, but in my professional experience, a haircut in a salon at the hands of a stylist during the day is one thing. Taking a razor to your head in the middle of the night is usually something else.” A pause, and then, very gently, Wilson says, “I’m not gonna help you disfigure yourself, man.”

Bucky kind of wants to hit something. The wall. Maybe Wilson. It’d be nice to hit Wilson, especially because he keeps not doing or saying the things Bucky expects him to do or say. He’s being kind right now, and Bucky hates how it feels. He hates feeling weak like this, like a victim. He’s going to peel his skin right off in a minute, to get the antsy vibrations out of his bones, he’s got to move, but he can’t, because Wilson will just think even more thoughts about how fucked up Bucky is, and Bucky’s not the fucked up one at all. It’s the Asset that’s fucked up, and if Wilson would just help him with his stupid hair, Bucky could maybe make that cold-noise-wind in his head go away once and for all.

But no.

Wilson’s gotta talk about shit first.

No wonder him and Steve are so damn buddy-buddy. Coupla do-gooders.

“It’s not like that,” Bucky tells the wall. His jaw is beginning to ache. He opens his mouth wide enough to make it pop, then cracks his neck, once each direction.

“Then what’s it like?” Still mild. Still calm. Like they’re talking about the weather.

“I—” Bucky scowls. “I’m different now.”

“Okay.”

“But I—I’m—it’s not easy to remember that.”

“Sure.”

“And I looked at—I thought… Fuck.”

Bucky can’t say anything else. After a minute, Wilson seems to realize it, because he asks, “You mean you looked at…yourself?”

Bucky jerks a nod.

“In the mirror?”

Another nod.

“And you thought…you looked like you used to?”

“No, I look like him.”

Wilson frowns for a second before he covers it up. “Who?”

Bucky can’t think of a name. He doesn’t think the poor bastard ever had one. “They just called him солдат. Well, when he was in Russia. The American handlers just called him the Asset.”

Wilson licks his lips. “You think of him as a different person.”

It’s maybe not supposed to be commentary; it’s as free of judgment as it’s possible for a sentence to be. But it’s enough to set Bucky vibrating again, at a higher frequency this time, because yeah, yeah, so what if he does, yeah, he fucking prefers the idea that he wasn’t the guy who’d killed a bunch of people because he was too stupid and too weak to stop himself from doing it, and maybe he’s still stupid and still weak if he needs it that way, if he needs to believe that it was someone else’s hands doing those things, squeezing throats and breaking cheekbones and watching eyes go dull and not feeling any one particular way about it, but he does need to believe it or he can’t fucking stop the way it digs into his skin, behind his eyes, into his brain, all the way down his spine, to think that it was him all along, and fuck Wilson for—

“Easy,” Wilson says quietly. “Trying to get the lay of the land, man, that’s all. Not trying to tell you how to run the op. Just…trying not to get in the way. I gotta understand before I can say yes or no.”

Bucky exhales shakily. He wants to snatch the razor back. Wants to do it himself. Wishes he’d never knocked on the door. Wishes he’d shaved his head on his own. Who cares if he cuts himself? Let him bleed. It’s not like wounds matter to a guy like him.

“So you don’t want to look like him,” Wilson says after a minute of silence. He twists his wrist, drawing attention to the razor. “That’s the point?”

Bucky sets his jaw. Nods at the wall.

There’s another brief moment’s pause.

“So?” Bucky asks, and despite his best efforts he sounds like an asshole. “Are you gonna shave my fucking head or what?”

In his peripheral vision, Bucky can see Wilson’s head tip sideways. He’s looking at him. He can feel those intelligent brown eyes on him. Wilson makes a considering hum, then says, “I got a better idea. Come in here.” He turns and goes back into his room.

Bucky glares at the floor as he follows.

Five minutes later, every light in the room is blazing and Bucky’s sitting in the middle of the motel room in the desk chair, a towel draped around his shoulders. Wilson’s squinting at his head and wielding a pair of scissors from his own grooming kit. He also has the black plastic comb from Bucky’s, the one with a few broken teeth because Bucky’s hair had been full of knots when he first got it. The razor is on the desk because Wilson is cutting Bucky’s hair instead of shaving it. There are some cordless electric clippers on the desk. Wilson says they’re what men these days use to cut their hair very short. _What a century we live in_, Bucky had said flatly, but Wilson had only rolled his eyes and told him to sit his ass down.

Wilson talks as he cuts Bucky’s hair. He talks about his mother taking him to a barbershop when he was a kid. Bucky’s not really listening. It’s hard to focus on Wilson’s words when Wilson is so close and big and leaning over him. He keeps touching Bucky, too. He’s touching Bucky a lot, and it’s making Bucky—it’s distracting. And it keeps startling him. Not so much that he jumps, because it’s not that kind of startlement. It’s more that he can’t relax. Bucky wants to push Wilson away.

His thoughts trip up there, and after a moment of examining them, he has to admit that he doesn’t want to push Wilson away. It’s more that he thinks he should want to. But Wilson’s radiating heat and he smells like sleep and clean skin, and none of that’s bad. Wilson’s hands are big and warm and quiet, slow and steady in the air. Wilson’s being careful, Bucky can tell. Careful not to startle Bucky. It’s working. If anything, Bucky finds himself wanting to lean in. It’s the warmth, he tells himself. Bucky’s cold all the time, that’s all, and Wilson is really warm. That’s all it is.

Wilson puts a few fingers on Bucky’s cheek to get him to turn his head a little, and Bucky does turn his head, but not where Wilson means it—instead, he goes the wrong way, closer, and ends up snugging his cheek into Wilson’s palm for a long second. He lets out a breath involuntarily before he realizes what he’s done, and then he jerks back, stunned at himself. Stupid. Stupid.

Wilson doesn’t move. His hand hangs there in the air.

“Sorry,” Bucky mutters. “Wasn’t paying attention. I misunder—look, I’m sorry. Tired.”

After a beat, Wilson says, “It’s no problem, man. I don’t mind. We all get foggy at three a.m., you know?”

Wilson’s so kind. It’s one of his most defining characteristics, along with his sarcastic sense of humor and his near-psychotic brand of loyalty. He’s kind. He lets Bucky say things that most people would hate him for saying and he tells Bucky lies like _It’s okay to make mistakes_ and _everything’s going to be all right_, when anyone with two brain cells knows that when Bucky makes mistakes things are not okay, and it won’t be all right because it never is. Wilson’s just so damn kind. Bucky would really, really like it if he would stop. It makes it hard for Bucky to stay upright.

One warm hand lands on Bucky’s shoulder, heavy enough that Bucky can’t interpret it as an accident or a fleeting, awkward touch. Wilson’s saying something with this touch. It’s conscious. It’s meant to make Bucky feel better. Bucky stares at the floor and works hard not to lean into it, but—but he wants—

It’s been such a long time.

He clears his throat. “Are we done yet?”

That hand stays on his shoulder for another three seconds. There’s nothing rushed about its withdrawal, either. Bucky misses it immediately. “Nope. Gotta even it up or your face’ll look lopsided.”

“God forbid,” Bucky says under his breath.

There’s a tiny hesitation, and then Wilson adds, almost cheerfully, “Well, more lopsided than it already does.”

Bucky raises a baleful eyebrow. “Ha. Ha.”

Wilson smiles. “You know, that didn’t sound like real laughter. Do you not appreciate my wit?”

“About as much as any other fourth-grader’s,” Bucky snaps. “Look, can we wrap this up—”

“Asks for a favor and then complains about it the whole time,” Wilson interrupts, sounding all kinds of fake sorrowful, and Bucky knows Wilson’s fucking with him, but his mother’s good boy is apparently still in his head somewhere along with all the other bullshit, because he feels sort of guilty about it all the same.

He sighs. “Just…do it.”

Wilson laughs softly and gets back to work. It’s only another minute before he’s putting the scissors aside. The clippers go on next, and Wilson circles Bucky, cleaning up the stretch of hair between the base of his skull up to around his ears.

When the clippers fall silent, Wilson picks up the comb and starts styling Bucky’s hair, which Bucky could tell him is a waste of time, but it’s pleasant, having Wilson’s fingers on his scalp, tugging gently. When that’s done, Wilson starts wiping all the hair away with the towel, brushing his neck clean, and once, making Bucky’s belly go taut and shivery, he blows on the back of Bucky’s neck.

Finally, Wilson says, “All right. Now remember, if you hate it, we can still shave the whole thing. Here, hang on a sec, let me get a hand mirror.”

“You have a hand mirror?” Bucky asks, putting _tone_ into it, as Wilson steps away.

“A brother can’t miss spots in the back,” Wilson says. “You had a good point about that. It takes effort to look this good.”

“Pageant girls are no doubt jealous,” Bucky says, deadpan, and Wilson’s grinning as he comes back.

“Shut up and check out what I did for this ugly mug.” He holds the mirror out.

Bucky’s so busy scowling that he doesn’t think to brace himself. And then he’s looking at—at—_himself_.

“Fuck,” he stammers, staring. His hair is short on the sides, longer on top, with a part on one side so that it curves over his crown. It’s not perfect—a little uneven near the ears—but it’s right. It’s familiar and normal and a pretty damn good approximation of the haircut he’d had back before the war. It’s the haircut pretty much every man on his block had had before the war, actually, and all the guys in the pictures too. There’s nothing of the Soldier or the Asset in this haircut—it’s pure 1940s U.S. of A. “Oh, fuck, that’s—that’s—God, Wilson, that’s—that’s me.”

A warm hand settles on the back of his neck. “Yeah, I think it is.”

“Jesus.”

Wilson’s hand squeezes, the thumb digging in in a way that sends tingles down his spine. “This is maybe long overdue now that I think about it, but hi. I’m Sam Wilson. You can call me Sam. And it’s an honor to meet you, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Oh, fuck,” Bucky says, and stumbles to his feet. He drops the mirror, but Wilson must’ve been expecting something like that, because he’s ready and waiting, rescuing it out of the air and putting it on the desk. “Oh. Oh, shit. Sam. I’m—”

“Yeah, you are. You’re Bucky Barnes, and you’re here, and whatever parts of you aren’t you are gonna go eventually. It’s just a matter of time and effort and healing, man.”

“Fuck,” Bucky says again, and then he laughs. He laughs and laughs until his voice breaks, and then the room’s getting blurry. “Fuck. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with you.” Sam steps closer, then tentatively puts his hands on Bucky’s shoulders. He’s so damn warm.

“Easy,” Sam murmurs, and Bucky should push him away, should stand up straight on his own two feet, but Sam is so damn warm and it’s been so long and Bucky’s here, he’s really here, and his body just flat refuses to do what he tells it. He ends up burying his face in Sam’s neck, smelling his skin, desperate and grateful, and he’s so tired. He’s so damn tired and cold and Sam holds him for a long time until Bucky stops shaking.

His body goes heavy. His brain stops working. His eyelids suddenly have weights attached to them. He only realizes after the fact that nuzzling is probably a thing he shouldn’t be doing right now. With a burst of effort, he manages to lift his head. He gets a glimpse of brown eyes and a furrowed brow, and something electric and thick leaps into the air between them.

Bucky doesn’t know which of them moves, but they’re kissing. Soft brushes of lips, breath puffing, little tastes, sweet and simple, and Bucky aches with it. He’s so tired. He’s too tired to lift or even stir the weight of this moment, but he just—he needs it so badly that he can’t stop.

Bucky may never know which of them started it, but it’s Sam who pulls back.

His voice is gratifyingly hoarse when he says, “Okay. Okay, that’s a thing. Apparently. We’re gonna need to talk about that. Um. Before it. Uh. Happens again. That probably shouldn’t happen again. Circumstances. But at the very least, we should talk about it. The thing.”

“He wants to talk about it,” Bucky mutters. “Shocking.”

Sam laughs under his breath and lets his forehead rest against Bucky’s. “I’m a predictable sort of guy that way, I guess.”

Bucky thinks about_ that probably shouldn’t happen again_. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have. You don’t have to.”

“I know.” Sam presses his lips to Bucky’s cheek, the possibility of _again_ very present in the moment. “Shit. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to. Not sure it’s wise, considering what we’re doing. The job, I mean. But…” He sighs, then kisses Bucky again, another brief, soft touch of his mouth. Bucky’s spine is a liquid mess. His hands want to cling. He tells them not to; they don’t obey.

“You’re so warm,” Bucky whispers, not sure if it’s an explanation or an apology.

Sam sucks in a breath that he holds for a long second. He seems uncertain, maybe the first time Bucky’s seen that expression on his face. Then it settles into more familiar lines. It’s Sam’s responsible face. Bucky’s not surprised when he says, “This is definitely a tomorrow thing. Let’s get you settled, man. This is too much thinking for—Jesus, it’s 4 am. C’mon.”

It’s probably a good choice. As soon as Sam pulls away, Bucky’s whole body turns to lead. He guides Bucky back into his own room and helps him settle into the bed and pulls the covers over him. It’s really helpful, actually, considering that Bucky’s limbs are about as useful right now as a second asshole.

Sam’s saying something, but Bucky can’t tell what it is. He feels like he’s in an immense cave, and all the sounds in the world are being eaten up by the echo. It’s dark now—Sam’s turned the light out, that’s all—and it’s cold in the bed, and Bucky doesn’t like that at all, knows he’ll just lie here thinking until the sun comes up.

But then Sam’s back, climbing up onto the other side of the bed, on top of the covers. He lies down on his back, near enough to touch, but the duvet and the blanket are stretched between them. It’s sort of perfect—close but not too close—and once again, Bucky thinks of how kind Sam Wilson is, and he takes a breath that’s at least half-sob.

“It’s all right, man,” Sam murmurs into the dark, and Bucky rolls over, presses his forehead against Sam’s shoulder. It’s rude. Asking too much. It’s probably intrusive. Bucky feels sort of uncomfortable about it. Not because it’s uncomfortable, exactly. More because of how not-uncomfortable it is.

Then Sam’s rolling over to face him and a big, strong hand is in his hair, stroking, and every muscle in Bucky’s body unlocks at the same time, and he tries to breathe and not cry like a child and the sheets slowly warm up around him. Sam says, “It’s okay. You can take a breather. We can pick it back up in the morning. Get some rest. It’s gonna be okay, Buck.”

_Buck_. Bucky thinks about protesting, because only Steve calls him that. Steve has the right to because Steve is his best friend, but Steve isn’t here right now. And Sam might not be his best friend, but Sam is _a_ friend.

Bucky doesn’t want to protest. He wants to sleep, right here, as Bucky, with his face against Sam’s chest, with Sam’s hand heavy in his hair, listening to Sam yawn and talk about how everything’s going to be okay.

It sort of feels okay.

It occurs to Bucky that when Sam says things like that, maybe he’s not trying to be kind. Maybe he’s trying to be honest.


End file.
